I want to revisit the excellent line of threads started by Gavin King, the former moderator of this forum. I just want to simplify his posts a bit to better match the interests of those who are reading the PP forum these days, as it seems from those who post.

The first "pressure point of the week" will be St 5. It is easy to locate. Trace your finger along the lower edge of your bottom jaw. About 1/2 way back, you will feel a hole in the bone. This is St 5. You can hit it up and in towards the center of the skull, or down and in like towards the base of the neck on the other side.

A KO is possible if the point is either hit hard enough, or properly set up. Therefore, be sure you have supervision from someone knowledgeable in revivals, or that you have been passed off on revivals by your own instructor. In practice, we generally don't practice for the KO. We look for a buzz or electrical sensation at least a few times so that torre can know he is hitting it correctly. The rest of the time, we just tap lightly to develop accuracy in motion.

If there is a KO, and the revivals are not done, you run the risk of having uke have a lingering headache for the rest of the day, or nausea. You do not want to do this to your friend.

This point is very easy to find, and pretty easy to hit in back and forth drills.

Try it, and post back about your success and what combinations you are using it with. Have fun.

lol...entertaining thread guys/gals. I'm thinking, you could learn the meridian maps, study how energy flows, be aware of what time of day does what, learn the meridians to activate in rescussitation, learn precise points along the pathways, etc...

-OR- just train how to do this:

hit 'em in the chin hard when they are open for it.

but don't let me derail. I believe where the thread left off before my interruption was a forum member was just about to tell you why a light-tap KO can't be performed on yourself.

Learn to do this first. It takes a lot less time and you are more likely to accomplish the goal.

Then, learn the meridians, etc. It's fun and interesting knowledge to have. But not so practical.Take the original responder. Nothing personal against him - but he couldn't even sit down and find the point on his own jaw. How is he supposed to find it on an attacker in the heat of a fight? The thing is that - he won't. Not only he won't but 99.9% of the people who take the pressure point seminars will not. Maybe more than that.

Even in massage, where the patient is lying still, you have to feel around and zero in on the points. They are not in the exact same spot on everyone. Close, but you almost never just go directly to them.

This kind of training is best done in the environment of the healing arts. Not only for the purposes of a better, more complete education, but for safety.

Once you are well grounded in basic self defense and have a real understanding of these points, then you can move onto learning more advanced martial arts and more complicated self defense applications.

I was the previous moderator. I know very well that the point is NOT the hole, but the nerve. My instruction was to help a person find the nerve. The nerve can be found in, and coming out of, the hole. It is a foramen. A foramen is a hole in a bone. Nerves and blood vessels go through these holes.

I am female. I do not pay any attention to diurnal cycle or many other things that people sometimes think are necessary but are not. I do not fight in the street however I have used my martial arts and Kyusho skills occaisionally during my career as a psychiatric nurse where I regretably sometimes have to take care of and defend myself and others from violent patients. I realize this is not the street, however, it is real. It also means that I have a duty of care towards the attacker and whenever possible, I can do no harm. I need to hold and contain rather than counter attack. Kyusho, especially Kyusho applications in tuite and grappling, are very well suited to this kind of work. Fortunately, I train more in deescalation techniques and most of the time, that keeps us from needing to use physical applications. I would be a little cautious about studying with someone with "a lot" of street experience because I'd wonder about his/her judgement. However, thank you for taking my inventory. I would have thought that my posts speak for themselves but if not, then thank you for setting the record straight. I'm sure you know best.

I am sure I don't have your qualifications in either Kyusho or martial arts generally, but if you want my qualifications, it is mostly that I was the only person studying Kyusho seriously that was willing to moderate when Gavin King gave up moderatorship of this forum. I had been his co-mod. Gavin was an excellent moderator. I do not have his skills and the frustrations of moderating eventually got to me, because it is a rough world in a free forum with trolls insulting and challenging rather regularly. They contribute little, criticize much, and make people feel awkward for trying to help others.

Moderators are not obligated or expected to be experts. They are just there to keep law and order essentially. They are just members first, moderators second. However, if it mattters, I am a Nidan in my martial arts style which is American-Te, a kind of Kenpo. I am ranked PL 1 by Evan Pantazi in Kyusho International. Evan Pantazi is one of my instructors. My other instructors are ranked PL 3 by Evan Pantazi. Evan teaches the PL class. The PLs teach the lower levels in Kyusho. Kyusho is integrated into everything a black belt does in my school.

If my post lacked the specificity you were looking for, it is because it was written for the beginner like the poor guy who can't find his own St 5 or the guy who hasn't figured out that it is very difficult to strike on yourself. It is even harder than learning how to strike another person. My personal belief is that while targeting and techniques that belong to Kyusho can be integrated into the material a person learns all along, it takes an advanced student to really know how to apply them. You need to know how to punch correctly and lightly with a relaxed whipping motion. This is not a beginner skill. Then once achieved, if you are going to practice this with an uke, you need to learn to tone it WAY down and still be striking correctly.

I think that when critiquing a post, it is very important to assess WHO or WHAT KIND of student the post was written for. The forum is open to all levels of students, from the student who can't find his St 5, up and through your level.

Everyone needs to feel comfortable to post and to ask questions and to believe that his/her inquiries will be addressed respectfully.

To the student who could not find his St 5, the dent in the lower edge of the jaw is almost as wide as your thumb. Try again. Feel the edge of the lower jaw with your thumb. Go back about half way from the front of the jaw to the end where the soft tissue is in front of the ear. I just checked my teeth. The point is under my molars on the lower jaw. Try again. Let me know how you are doing.

This forum is for YOU the student who asks honest questions and wants to learn.

Hey Gavin. I read your post and while I was responding, you deleted it. Yes I'd love to come and train with you guys. If they ever hold the International Kyusho Convention in England, I'll try to get there. This year it is in Italy. You'd like it. It is an Eclectic group of healers and warriors.